Are Men Born Sinners? - Library of Theology

Excerpts from Moses Stuart's Commentary on Romans
Romans 5:19
In ver. 12, when the apostle had said, that 'by one man sin entered the world, and death
by sin, and so death passed upon all men,' he meant by these last words (as we have seen
above), that his readers should understand him to hint, that the passing of death upon all
men had some connection with Adam's offence. But still he subjoins immediately, as the
specific and immediate reason or ground of this death, eph o pantes hemarton. Why not
recognize the same connection and the same sentiment here? Adam's sin was a cause or
ground why all men are constituted sinners; yet Adam's sin is not affirmed to be their sin;
they are not said to be en auto hamartoloi, nor te hamartia autou hamartoloi, nor yet to
katakpimati autou katadedikasmenoi; but they are hamartoloi in, by, and for themselves.
A ground or cause of this, was Adam's offence. But natural evil, and disadvantage, and
degeneracy of nature is one thing, and sin, is another. A man's sin is and must be his own
act, either internal or external, or both; and for men to be hamartoloi, they must be
actively and voluntarily so. Another man's sin can no more be mine, than his soul can be
mine; no more than his consciousness, will, affections, or disposition, can be mine. To
impute them to me, then, must be to impute to me what in fact does not belong to me,
what never did, and what never can. The candid advocates of imputation in its highest
sense, concede this. But how much progress do we make in the knowledge of things, and
in the explanation of important principles in theology, when we affirm that God counts
that as existing which does not in reality exist, and which is in itself an impossibility?
To avoid the difficulty of such imputation (which indeed such men as Calvin, and
Edwards, and Stapfer pointedly rejected) some, e.g., Edwards and others, have assumed
an absolute unity or oneness of Adam and all his posterity. But this method of
explanation is fraught with difficulties both physiological and moral. It is physiologically
untrue. A separate consciousness, will, affections, desires, etc., make separate beings; or
else there is but one being material or immaterial, in the universe. Consciousness
contradicts this theory. Individual accountability renders it incredible. If Adam and his
posterity are indeed all one, then all their sins are just as much his, as his is theirs, and his
penitence is as much theirs, as his offences. Or is it true, that God, a being of boundless
benevolence and love of holiness, has made such a world that nothing but sin can be
propagated in it?
The simple statement of fact seems to be, after all, that God has such an utter aversion to
sin, that he has testified his displeasure by an appalling exhibition of the woeful
consequences to which it leads. Sin is a violation of the order and harmony of the
universe, and consequently productive of evil, because it disturbs those laws and
tendencies all of which are in themselves productive of good. The greatest mischief of all
is, that sin, in this way, brings suffering and sorrow upon the innocent as well as the
guilty. But in this very way, too, the odious and abominable nature of sin is most fully
and completely exhibited. The earth cursed for man's sake; the brute creation subjected to
innumerable evils on his account; the posterity of Adam born heirs of suffering, and
despoiled of the disposition to obedience which our primitive ancestors possessed; are all